


the lion and the mouse

by MonsterParade



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: F/M, Overlord Causes Property Damage, but mostly just him peacocking around, overlord is just mad possessive but what else is new, slightly unhealthy dynamic?, smoochy smooches abound, so it's like a SLIGHT yandere flavor here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-09-01 05:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20252866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterParade/pseuds/MonsterParade
Summary: the mouse pulls the thorn from the lion's paw, and from then their bond is set.





	the lion and the mouse

**Author's Note:**

> a commission for the LOVELY, VERY VERY WONDERFUL mari-strider on tumblr!!! Thank you for being SO very patient with me while I plugged away at this-- I'd never written Overlord before, but I really do hope I did a good job with him!! He loves you VERY very much!!! <3 <3

Mari thinks Overlord might be lonely.  
  
She's not really sure about him; for all that he likes to hang around her, a titanic, clinging thing, she finds that she doesn't actually know him very well, not _really_, and sometimes that makes her nervous.  
  
Makes her wonder just what sort of being she's _really_ harboring in that little private patch of woods outside her house.  
  
She'd met him nearly a year ago now, after a _crash-boom-bang_ that had woken her from a dead sleep and terrified her out of her bed, and that flash of light that had lit up the sky like midday, so bright she'd thought the sun had finally decided to swallow itself.  
  
She'd found **him** in a smoking crater in the forest, wrenched and blackened metal, half-dead. He'd been terrifying, colossal-- still is, even, after all this time. Mari had faced him down that night with only a flashlight in her hand and the pajamas she'd run out of the house in on her back, clinging to her skin in the warm light rain, and he'd looked back at her with glassy red eyes that had been so _alien_, and soft, smiling lips that had been so _familiar_. Human and inhuman, all at once.  
  
To this day she's still not really sure why she took him in that night. Why she'd _hidden_ him, instead of calling the cops; why she'd brought him the tools he needed to repair himself, dragging scrap metal through the woods until her body ached. Why she'd tolerated his digs at her while his legs were still all twisted up and busted; smoking, bleeding pink-- while he was cruel and callous and mocking to the little creature who ran to him when he called.  
  
She thinks that it was _pity_\-- but she also thinks that _she_ might have been lonely, too.  
  
\-------  
  
They get along much better, nowadays, but that doesn't mean that Overlord has gotten _any_ more compliant about following her boundaries.  
  
Mari wakes up, not for the first time, to a giant finger prodding against her midsection and pinning her to the bed.  
  
Startled, bewildered from sleep, she tries to sit up on instinct, tries to push the pressure off of herself and wriggle away, and when that fails she grunts and falls back and rubs her eyes, clarity returning to her, ire replacing her confusion as she identifies her obstacle.  
  
"_Overlord_," she begins loudly, turning her head so she can look out her open bedroom window and glare at the enormous hand that has managed to stick two of its fingers through into her bedroom, "Did you break my window _again?"_  
  
The finger that is halfway to crushing her organs twitches, pat-pat-patting her in what she's sure is meant to be a mollifying way, and she can hear Overlord's non-committal humming clearly even through the wall.  
  
"You're the one who was taking so long to wake up!" she hears him say, in that faux-wounded voice, "I was merely making sure your tiny little heart hadn't stopped in the night."  
  
He's so big, and his voice is so loud, that sometimes when he forgets to control his volume it shakes the house, and Mari cringes and hurries to cover her ears as her alarm clock rattles on her nightstand and a few loose pennies scatter off onto the floor. She twists until she can get a leg out from under the covers and then nudges his finger with her knee, and replies, a little more pleadingly than before,  
  
"Volume control, please!" as she finally frees herself from his patting and rolls out onto the carpet.  
  
Overlord pulls his fingers back out through the window, and her view of him shifts until one of his huge red eyes becomes visible past the busted glass, blinking at her, watching her push herself up to her feet and dust the carpet fuzz off of her pajamas. Mari sighs, and scratches a hand through her mussed-up hair.  
  
"You're so cute when you have a temper," Overlord says with a sigh, in a sickly-sweet tone of voice like one would use to talk to a baby or a puppy. He starts to try to poke his fingers back in through the window again, but Mari dodges expertly and grabs his index finger under one arm like she's going to wrestle it, patting it with the flat of her open hand as if to soothe him-- exasperated but still trying not to laugh.  
  
"Hey, _hey_, no grabbing, buddy, we talked about this," she reminds him quickly, and then adds, "...And don't patronize me. I'm a grown human being, not a pet."  
  
Overlord's only response to that is an indulgent chuckle, and Mari just shakes her head and lets him go, aware she can't hold even his finger in place for any longer than he would care to indulge her. He pulls back once more, and she glances down at the shards of glass all over her floor before looking back to him.  
  
She can't see his mouth, but she can tell from the slant of his eye that he's smiling.  
  
She sighs again, loud and long, and smiles back.  
  
"Alright, I'm up. I'll be outside in a little while, okay? I'll meet you in our spot."  
  
\-------  
  
Their 'spot' is the charred, flattened crater of dirt a little ways into the copse of woods that borders her house, the place that they've been meeting since day one; it's the crater Overlord created when he fell from the sky that one fateful night, the crater he'd once been so badly wounded inside that he hadn't been able to move from, and while Mari would have imagined he'd want to leave such horrible memories of pain behind him, it's the place they always end up coming back to.  
  
It almost feels like a secret base at this point, a rock-hard circle of earth in the middle of the trees, where no plants seem to manage to grow and where the animals avoid moving.  
  
Mari makes her way down to it once she's showered and dressed, her hair still a little damp but drying quickly in the sun, with her phone in her pocket and a picnic basket full of breakfast in her hands (a necessary purchase after she'd learned how much Overlord didn't like to wait while she ate). She takes care to avoid swinging it as she clambers over collapsed trees, dodging rubble along the familiar path to the crater. It's so well-worn that this point that if anyone ever came looking for Overlord, all they'd have to do was follow the dirt track worn into the grass and they'd find him in a heartbeat.  
  
She...just tries not to think about what would happen if someone ever _did_ find him.  
  
She takes the last gentle left around a jagged hunk of rock in her path, shaking her buzzing thoughts out of her head, and as she comes into view around it she sees Overlord roll over, sit up in the grass, and give her a smile that's all teeth and manic energy and _hunger_. It is not a nice smile, but then, it never has been. It just doesn't really scare her anymore.  
  
"Hi, Lordy," she says cheerily, meeting his grin with her own. "How are the legs today?"  
  
"Mm, they're _good,_" he replies, a little distractedly, his voice smooth, and _something_ about the way he's looking down at her in her skirt as he says it makes her skin prickle and her cheeks flush, unwillingly pink. She pulls the pleats down a little with her free hand, smoothing them out, and ducks her head.  
  
"Oh-- um, you like my new skirt? I bought it last week, I thought it might be nice to try it...but I was talking about _your_ legs, by the way," she adds, now setting down her basket and propping her hands on her hips, and as she looks up at him and raises her eyebrows, Overlord doesn't even have the shame to look embarrassed about being caught ogling. He just smiles wider.  
  
"They're fine too."  
  
Mari makes the conscious decision not to snort at him, bemused. Overlord, in a weird way, sometimes reminds her of a cat-- she's never seen him admit to feeling pain, not even back when they'd first met, when his legs had been a mangled heap of scrap and bubbling energon-- and if it hadn't been for the way he still sometimes hitches when he walks, going momentarily silent, she would probably assume he couldn't feel it at all.  
  
"You know you're going to have to see a professional about that eventually, hon," Mari tells him as she reaches the side of his leg and pats his shin. Overlord lowers a hand to her, flat and palm-up, and she climbs up onto it by using his massive fingers as a foothold and allows him to lift her up off the ground, the motion well-practiced as he carefully deposits her in his lap. She sits down cross-legged on his knee and motions for him to hand her her basket. "Even just a human mechanic might be able to do _something_, until we can get you off-planet again. Don't you think?"  
  
Overlord listens to her with a look on his face like he's not really internalizing any of her words, and slowly tips his head to the side to rest the corner of his jaw in his hand.  
  
"...I _still_ don't think you realize how durable I am." he says.  
  
Mari hums to herself. He's probably right. He _had_ survived a fall straight from the planet's atmosphere.  
  
She doesn't bother to reply, the conversation lapsing into practiced silence as she opens her picnic basket and sets her breakfast down on a little cloth she'd brought along to drape across his knee. Some soft croissants, some chocolate spread, a thermos full of milk-- she sets them up on his leg like he's a makeshift table, and Overlord is so still for it that the butter knife doesn't even rattle. She glances up as she opens the thermos, and finds him staring down at her.  
  
"...What?" she asks, with a little laugh in her voice. She's been catching him doing that a whole lot lately, and she's not quite sure what to think of it.  
  
Overlord smiles down at her, with that smug air to it he always seems to have, and reaches down with a pinkie finger to nudge her underneath her chin.  
  
"Oh, only thinking," he says, in that disgustingly seductive velvet tone of his. He rubs underneath Mari's jaw and strokes down to her neck, like he's petting a little animal, and Mari, well used to this, only leans into the massage with her eyes half-closed. "Only thinking. So _trusting_ you are, and so small! _Whatever_ am I going to do with you?"  
  
Mari blinks at him, pretty accustomed to the weird shit he says, and shrugs.  
  
"Maybe...let me eat my breakfast?" she suggests jokingly. Overlord barks a laugh, a single sound so loud that Mari nearly vibrates off of him, and she digs her fingers into one of the seams that break up the plating on his leg just to keep from tipping over. Overlord pets along her jaw, eyes hooded, and then up over her cheek, and then before she can move or speak he slides his finger over to her lips and she feels him linger, a weird static energy running up her back. It tingles along her skin.  
  
Now Mari is _really_ staring. This is a new wrinkle in his usual style of poking and prodding, and she feels herself going red at the look on his face, something familiar but that escapes her identification. Overlord pushes, just a little, and Mari has a bewildering moment of wondering if he might try to shove his finger into her mouth.  
  
So she pulls away, hastily, her heart fluttering, and starts to laugh, giggles bubbling up in her chest to dispel the tension. She covers her mouth with one hand, and feels her lips still warm from where he'd touched them. She tucks her hair behind her ear.  
  
"I said my breakfast, not your hand!" she laughs.  
  
Overlord pulls back and chortles with her, but that heat and that energy remains, and even while Mari turns her attention back to her food and to the warm spring morning, she can still feel his eyes on her like a wandering, physical weight.  
  
\-------  
  
Days pass. Mari goes about her life, and Overlord is, for the most part, relatively quiet. It's their usual routine again;  
  
_up_ until the Sunday morning Mari tries to go outside and finds her front door blocked.  
  
She jiggles the handle, confused. It doesn't budge. She double-checks the lock-- unlocked correctly, including the chain-- and then pushes again, and this time she feels a little give along with the strange sound of rustling just outside the door. She heaves and hauls, grunting and grumbling with the effort of it, and finally manages to shove the door open enough to slip outside onto her porch.  
  
She blinks, and cocks her head.  
  
Well, that's why she couldn't get her door open-- there's a _tree_ on her front porch. Or, more accurately, _several_; all in pieces, branches and massive clumps of leaves, but in a very deliberate way, organized chaos that makes her think this was _more_ than just a nighttime storm.  
  
Mari crouches down to study one of the split branches, and recognizes the poor pink dogwood flowers that she had been commenting on appreciatively only the day before.  
  
"What in the hell...?" she mutters to herself.  
  
  
"Do you like them?"  
  
Mari shrieks.  
  
She whirls around, nearly tripping over the tree branch as she jumps back to her feet, and spends a moment looking around wildly before she spies Overlord standing there, right beside her house, hidden from her periphery by the overhang of the roof. She claps a hand over her heart and gives him a look.  
  
"I thought you would!" Overlord just continues, as if he hadn't even noticed her screaming. "Yes, I heard you admiring those the other day! So I decided it would be easier if you didn't have to walk all the way over to the woods just to see them. Were you very surprised?"  
  
He's grinning in that toothy way like he might bite her, all pride and preening, and Mari stares up at him while her heart rate slows back to acceptable levels and she tries to think of what to say.  
  
"You-- these...are for me?" she asks, looking back to the wreckage surrounding her porch. It's a strange gesture, but an unusually sweet one too, and she finds herself starting to smile automatically as she scoops up a stray blossom, cupping it in her hands. Overlord gives her that look she can't place again. "Oh my _gosh_, Lordy...aww, _thank_ you-!" she exclaims. She does feel sorry for the poor trees, but still undeniably touched. She can't remember the last time someone gave her flowers!  
  
Overlord's smile only further broadens, and he props a hand on his hip and raises the other to study his paint job like he's not about to start peacocking around about it.  
  
"Yes, they _do_ compliment your delicate organic nature." he replies, transparently pleased with himself.  
  
Mari considers him for a moment, and then tucks the flower as firmly into her hair as she can before standing up on her tip toes and reaching upwards, making a grabbing motion with both hands.  
  
"Pick me up!"  
  
Overlord kneels down almost too quickly, narrowly avoiding one of the felled trees, and offers her his palm to climb into, raising her up to his face.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
He always seems even bigger up-close like this, and Mari wonders distantly to herself when he stopped being intimidating to her as she carefully walks across his palm. ...It's for the best, she reckons, as she opens her arms and leans in to give the side of his cheek as big and warm a hug as she can muster.  
  
He's softer than she'd expected, more flexible. Overlord's smile falters in surprise, his eyes widening a fraction, and then he chuckles triumphantly, indulgently, and his grin comes back full force as Mari snuggles into him without fear. Mari finds that she isn't the slightest bit afraid, even though he could crush her between his teeth.  
  
"Thank you, Overlord," she repeats, turning her cheek to press against his, "That was unusually sweet of you!"  
  
The great engine inside his chest growls and purrs, and Overlord lets Mari cling to him until her urge to cuddle is sated.  
  
"I can be _anything_ you want of me." she hears him murmur, his voice a rumble against her side.  
  
\-------  
  
It's not until nighttime comes that Mari really notices what an odd thing to say that was.  
  
Because really, that was..._weird_, right?  
  
Exhausted but unable to sleep, the clock telling her she's pushing two a.m., Mari rolls over in bed again and stretches out on her back to stare at the ceiling as her thoughts chase themselves around in her head, her hair tousled from all her shifting around.  
  
Yeah, that was weird, definitely. Like, Overlord's _always_ been weird, but recently...recently it's a different _flavor_, and the more Mari thinks about it, now that she _is_ thinking about it, the more she begins to have a suspicion that can't possibly be true. It's a suspicion that makes her embarrassed at herself even in the sanctity of her own room.  
  
She has questions. She has _serious_ questions that are going to need to be answered, _soon_\-- and before Overlord's strange and flustering behavior can continue any further; before it can give her false hope for something that can't be there. As long as she can just work up the _nerve_.  
  
\-------  
  
She's a little distant from him the next few days as she tries to figure out what to say. She still visits him, of course; he does essentially live in her _backyard_, after all, and if he's not kept occupied he'll just decide to entertain himself-- but she doesn't ask him to pick her up the way she usually does, and doesn't pat him when he makes a strange joke, or crawl up onto his legs, and whenever he looks down at her, with those bright red eyes that should look so much more ominous than they do, she can't quite meet his gaze, ducking her head and bashfully shying away.  
  
And she can tell he's getting frustrated with it.  
  
One afternoon as she's just getting out of the shower, freshly dressed in an old tee shirt and a pair of loose pajama pants with her hair still damp from the water, there suddenly comes such a _bang_ at the door that she nearly jumps out of her skin as she yelps in fear, fumbling her hairbrush to the floor. The banging pauses a moment and then picks up again, so forceful she can hear the front door creaking on his hinges, and then she realizes abruptly that, _duh_, there's only one person she knows who could be hitting the door that hard, and relaxes again with a rather bemused smile.  
  
She heads over to the door and leans in to look through the peephole.  
  
She's expecting to see Overlord's hand, his giant fingers curled to rap on the wood. Instead, she sees something that makes her stop dead with her hand halfway to the doorknob, doing a double-take as she tries to wrap her head around it; it's _Overlord_\-- _all_ of him. Standing in full frame on her front porch, bent over to glare into the doorway with rapidly rising impatience.  
  
"Mari? Are you in there? Come out, come out!" he calls, and cocks his head. He probably means well, but the way he says it makes it sound like the start to a horror movie.  
  
Mari shakes her own head to try and clear it and glances down at herself, making sure she's decent before undoing the main lock and the chain and opening the door a crack, bewildered. She peeks out.  
  
So it's _not_ some kind of illusion, then! Overlord really is standing in front of her, bizarrely small in comparison to his usual height; despite the fact that without the door between them, she has to guess he's still around twelve feet tall. His hands are on his hips, his fingers curled hard and tense into his waist, and when he finally sees her and his hands fly upwards, she glimpses the dents he's squeezed into his own plating. His beautiful lips curve into a broad smile as he ducks in.  
  
"Oh, _there_ you are!" he exclaims, and pulls the door the rest of the way open before she can stop him. His hands clap heavily down onto her shoulders, restrained power behind their metal digits that could crush her bones with a careless squeeze, and she's too surprised to even do more than squeak as he drags her into him and squashes her against his midsection. "You kept me waiting!"  
  
She...thinks he's trying to _hug_ her. It's tense and awkward, his arms caging loosely around her as if he's not sure how hard he can squeeze, but it's an attempt at an embrace nonetheless, and for all Mari knows, it may be his first time trying something like this at all. Maybe Cybertronians don't even _do_ physical affection.  
  
Mari has certainly never tried to hug anyone made of metal before, but once she realizes it's an attempt at a hug and not a close-quarters attack, she does her best to relax against his unyielding frame and wrap her arms around him in return, chuckling in surprise and glee.  
  
"Overlord?" she exclaims, with her cheek smushed against his stomach, and she can feel the way his engine kicks up into a deep baritone purr as she says his name. The cage of his arms grows a little tighter, and she wheezes.  
  
"Oh, are you surprised~?" she hears him ask, unable to pull away from him to look him in the eyes. "Yes, I'm _full_ of surprises, aren't I? I _knew_ mass-displacement couldn't be as difficult as everyone claimed it to be-- oh, and your little house! Do invite me inside." he continues, and it comes across firmly as a demand, not a request. Mari pats his back quickly and starts to wriggle, before he can dislocate something with his enthusiasm.  
  
"Lordy, ow, ow--"  
  
Overlord finally lets her go after an uncomfortable reluctance. She shakes herself off, stepping back gratefully, and tilts her head back to look up at him with wonder in her eyes, rubbing her own arms to get rid of the pins and needles feeling. Even at this size, Overlord is _ridiculously_ strong.  
  
"How on earth--? _How?"_ she asks him, waving her hands up and down his body.  
  
"Nevermind _that_," he replies, as if it's _normal_, and nudges her aside until he can reach the front door, bending almost double to stick his head inside, "Give me the tour! Let's get _comfortable_, just the two of us."  
  
Mari watches as he pushes his way through the doorway, the angular bulk of his shoulders tearing up the top corners of the wooden frame, and she runs a hand through her damp hair and just shakes her head as wood shavings rain down, following after him before he can get into any trouble. Forget a bull in a china shop; she'll be lucky if she can corral him before he busts down a wall.  
  
\-------  
  
Overlord wanders around her home with his head ducked and his shoulders hunched just to avoid scraping the ceiling with his...horns? Antennas? _Whatever_ those metal fixtures are that jut up off of his helm, reminding her again of a horned animal, as he nearly takes her ceiling fan out with a poorly-timed turn. She follows him, still a little mystified but grinning, and watches as he touches and judges and comments on all of her stuff and leaves all of her furniture off-kilter.  
  
"Hey, come on, sit," she urges him, and finally grabs the crook of his arm to catch his full attention, leading him gently towards the couch. They both know that all it would take is the slightest bit of resistance from him to stop her in her tracks, but he allows her to shepherd him along with a smile of indulgence, and she plops herself down on one end of the sofa and curls up against the armrest to give him room, patting the middle cushion invitingly. "It's comfy!"  
  
They're both so distracted by each other that they don't even stop to consider, _hey, a one-ton robot on a couch made of fabric and wood_ until it's already way too late, and then Overlord's leaning back onto it without even pulling his gaze away from Mari's; and his full weight hasn't even fully come to rest before the sofa makes the most _god-awful_ cracking sound Mari has ever heard in her life and the whole thing collapses like a pile of matchsticks.  
  
It snaps in the middle at the center of Overlord's weight, the wooden legs underneath it absolutely _shattering_, and all Mari can do is widen her eyes and be thankful this thing was on the ground level before her side of the couch hits the floor, jarring her painfully, and she bounces up into the air with the force of it.  
  
She doesn't hit the ground.  
  
Overlord doesn't so much as blink as the couch topples, and he reaches over with both hands to catch her out of mid-air with an air of mild exasperation, lofting her high and holding her there as his frame takes the brunt of the short fall. Splinters fly, and Mari clings to Overlord's fingers and the back of his hand with a squeal of fear.  
  
"Shit!"  
  
The dust, metaphorical though it may be, slowly settles. Mari peeks open an eye she didn't realize she had closed and looks 'round.  
  
...The sofa is nearly flattened, its two halves held together only by the thin stretch of fabric presently pinned underneath Overlord's legs, but nothing else seems to be damaged, and Overlord is looking up at Mari with a blank look as if he's waiting, waiting to see how she'll react to it.  
  
After a few moments, she starts to shiver, and her fingers tense on his.  
  
Her shoulders shake, and she _howls_ with laughter.  
  
"You broke my fucking _couch!"_ she cackles, the incident getting funnier and funnier with each moment she looks back on it-- like something out of a goddamn cartoon. She looks down at Overlord with his blank face, completely unaffected, and then keeps laughing until her eyes water, slumping over onto his wrists until she's just silently wheezing in mirth. Her vision is blurry, but she sees the toothy flash of Overlord's smirk too as he lowers her back down.  
  
\-------  
  
They end up watching a movie. It wasn't necessarily _planned_\-- Mari had just wanted to show him how the tv worked while she had him in the house (which he informed her afterwards was not especially impressive, something which she supposed she should have guessed)-- but it had been so...oddly comfortable, curled up in his lap where he'd set her down. Initially, being held like that had made her blush, but Overlord had ignored her squirming and her feeble protests and just held her there until she went still, like an unruly cat, with one of his hands curled around her midsection and the other resting on top of her head.  
  
It's...nice. It's actually really nice. Overlord isn't warm like a human person, but he _is_ still warm, in a way that reminds her of a car that's been running for a while. It makes his angular embrace much more cozy than it might have been if he were otherwise, and after a little while it actually starts to make Mari _sleepy_.  
  
They're watching an old, old monster movie that Mari had found in the depths of Netflix. Black-and-white old, something about a werewolf-- Mari isn't really paying attention to it, at this point; the special effects are cheesy and the acting is campy at _best_, but she's actually more content than she can remember being in a while, cuddled up with Overlord like this. Maybe she hadn't realized just how touch-starved she's been.  
  
One of the actors on-screen screams, the sound shrill and kind of canned, and Mari shifts and turns her head on a whim to glance up at Overlord. She's a little startled to catch him staring down and watching her instead of the tv.  
  
It's not exactly a new sight for her, his unreadable metal face peering down at her, but something-- perhaps it's the new size she hasn't yet adjusted to, or the eerie grey light from the television that washes out almost everything in the room-- something about the way he catches her eye makes her skin prickle, and for just a moment, a thin lance of fear strikes against her ribcage. Overlord's red eyes glow.  
  
Mari remembers, with sudden clarity, that Overlord has killed people. Not _human_ people, but _robot_ people, people like him; many of his answers have been oddly vague when she's asked, but she remembers him telling her about a war, and she has never quite forgotten the queer look on his face the first and only time he had told her about the number of lives he has taken.  
  
_('Innumerable', he'd said, with a look that bordered on wistful, 'Too many to count'.)_  
  
She's cuddled up on the remains of her couch with a killer. And for just a minute that _scares_ her, as it should-- but then Overlord finally, mercifully blinks, his eyelids making a tiny shutter-clinking sound, and he smiles down at her, and just like that her little strike of fear melts away again. She _knows_ him. And he's not _tame_, but she knows him, and if he had been at all inclined to kill her he would have most certainly done it by now. It would take no more from him than if she were to squash an ant, after all.  
  
"Don't tell me _this_ counts as frightening on this little backwater planet." Overlord says, breaking the silence with a slight tilt of his head towards the tv. He's evidently noticed her disquiet, no matter how momentary it had been, and Mari huffs a laugh and burrows in closer to him without giving herself much time to think about it, wrapping both her arms around one of his and clinging to reassure herself. She shakes her head.  
  
"I'm not scared! I was just thinking." she replies. Overlord watches her snuggle in with a new sharpness to his eye and goes unusually still, letting her squeeze, koala-like, onto his arm.  
  
There's a few minutes of quiet. It feels a little charged, like one or both of them are on the verge of saying something (although _what_, Mari doesn't quite know)-- but then the musical score on the movie ramps up into a wail that disturbs the silence, the sudden shriek of the violins actually making Mari jump as the tense atmosphere is broken, and Overlord bursts out into surprised laughter as Mari's nails scrabble automatically against the plating of his forearm.  
  
"Ohh, you _are_ scared!" he exclaims, at first in the shrill tones of the delighted and teasing, and then in a voice that slings down into a low, too-sweet croon, "Oh not to worry,_ I'll_ protect you, little one. What could harm you when I am around?"  
  
It's the tone of voice one might use when talking to a little pet, that particular soothing coo, but it still makes Mari's cheeks flush tingly and hot against her will as Overlord tops it off with a one-armed hug whose pressure just borders on crushing. She gasps a little as she's squashed against his chest for the second time that afternoon, and Overlord tilts his head down to rub his cheek against her hair, sparking faint static electricity between the strands.  
  
"Overlord," she laughs, letting go of his arm to try to give herself a little wiggle room, "_Stooooop,_ you're so embarrassing-! _Ugh_, I'm not a _baby!"_, but she finds that she doesn't have it in her to _really_ mind at all. Not when he's so warm, and making those stupid humming sounds that people make in their chests when they hug something soft.  
  
She feels-- loved.  
  
Oh.  
  
"Oh." she breathes.  
  
Overlord gives her a faintly inquisitive look, but doesn't at all loosen his hold.  
  
She twists to look properly up at him.  
  
She's sat sideways on his lap now, held tightly in his enormous arms, feeling warmer and more taken care of than she has in a very long time, with such clarity that it scares her a little-- and she's wondering something, looking up at him, but it's something that she's only ever wondered in the sanctity of her own room, all by herself, only very late at night and hidden in the dark;  
  
she's looking up at his gorgeous lips and wondering what it would be like to kiss him.  
  
"Overlord..." she repeats, before trailing off as she realizes she doesn't really know what to _say_.  
  
"Mmm?"  
  
Well. No one ever got anything by just sitting around and waiting for something to happen, did they? Maybe some things were worth the leap of faith you had to take. At any rate, there _was_ only one way to find out.  
  
Mari shuffles some more, turning insistently until he's finally forced to loosen his hold some just to accommodate her, and finally settles back down again once she's sitting, nearly splay-legged, in his lap, facing him. Overlord's eyes widen a little, a confused smile on his face-- but he doesn't actually get a chance to ask whatever question had been on his lips, because by the time he opens his mouth Mari is already taking a deep breath, steeling herself, face hot and heart pounding, and leaning up to kiss him.  
  
She's understandably nervous, so the kiss is soft; quick, almost chaste, just a feather-light brush of her lips against his. It sets her skin tingling regardless, and it's only after she pulls away to gauge his reaction that she realizes part of what she's feeling is literal static electricity. Some quiet corner of her is kind of amused as she presses her fingertips to her mouth.  
  
Overlord goes completely-stock still as she looks doe-eyed up at him, as close to shocked as she's ever seen him. Even his engine stalls; he makes a sound like an Earth car whose engine won't turn over, and for a few moments he just looks at her, wide-eyed, optics flaring, setting a red flush to everything around him that even kind of makes it look like _he's_ blushing. Automatically, it seems, he even copies her, and his hand flies up to his own lips, as if to feel for where she'd kissed him.  
  
There's suddenly something manic in his eyes again. Mari's only seen this kind of energy in him once or twice before, and it's always scared her, and it scares her now-- but this time it only has a chance to last for a moment, because before Mari can rush to apologize or disentangle herself from his grasp, by then, by then, Overlord is dragging her up to him and crushing his lips back to hers.  
  
Mari squeaks and automatically grabs for a handhold, winding her arms around his neck and squeezing. Predictably, the kiss is rough, at least at first; Overlord pushes so hard against her that it's almost uncomfortable, even though his lips themselves are gloriously plush and soft, and Mari can feel the hard edges of his teeth digging into her lips as she can feel him start to smile, start to grin-- Mari makes another soft sound, rubbing the back of his neck to try and calm him, and then finally Overlord seems to vent out an exhalation and all that abrupt pressure melts.  
  
Overlord _moans_, in the kind of shameless way that is not surprising at all, for him, and his kiss turns softer and sweet as he tips his head and slides one hand down Mari's back to rest just above her the line of her hips.  
  
"I-- _knew_ it!" he rushes to exclaim between the press of their lips, as Mari's heart flutters and her breath goes short, "I knew it-- I _knew_ you loved me!"  
  
And well, love is a strong word to just throw out like that-- but he's _right_, isn't he?  
  
Mari certainly makes no effort to correct him. Her head is buzzing, her stomach full of butterflies, and even though they're already pressed about as close together as they can be, she still leans in against him and all but tries to melt, a giddy laugh welling up in her chest even while she tries to push it back down.  
  
Overlord's hand is so tense against her back that he feels like a bowstring about to snap, and he is alight with manic energy, his glossa flicking lightly against her lower lip in a way that makes her entire body shudder with the softness of it.  
  
"Say it," she hears him mumble against her.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
Overlord nips her lip, makes her squeak, and then pulls back to look her in the eye, stroking her hair, his fingers scratching and rubbing against her back.  
  
"Say that you love me, Mari, say it." he demands. His voice is sweet, the lowest baritone and lovely, but his eyes are fierce, and it's so intense that even if Mari _didn't_ love him, she thinks she might have said she did just to keep him happy. They're both lucky that she _does_ love him-- very, _very_ much. Much more than she'd realized.  
  
"I-- I love you," she says softly, feeling very bashful. She brings one of her hands back to tuck her hair behind her ear. "Do you-- is the sentiment, um, returned?"  
  
She giggles helplessly after she asks, too delighted by the turn of events to help herself, and Overlord makes that moaning sound again and grabs her hand to kiss it. He presses his lips to her knuckles, to her wrist, her palm, and in between it he exhales words that she can't quite make out over the roar of his internal engine. So Mari thinks she can safely assume the best.  
  
"I-- I can't believe I waited so long," she admits, feeling like she's blushing all over, ridiculously flustered, "I thought you'd be-- you know, _way_ too above me, way too out of my league, you know? But I'm _so_ _glad_ you--"  
  
Overlord cuts her off. He pushes her sleeve back and kisses all the way up to her elbow, and then he abandons her arm and abruptly returns to her face, catching her lips with his again. Her breath turns to a soft whine in her throat as she presses back in.  
  
"I would kill for you." he declares, when he finally pulls away again, with Mari's lips kiss-bitten and pink. Mari just pants at him, starry-eyed. She should have known he'd be a phenomenal kisser, with a mouth like that. "I would _kill_ for you, you precious little thing-- I'll raze nations for you, I'll write our names in blood and fire-- wouldn't that be _romantic?_ I'll carve your name in this pitiful planet if you want me to," he continues, and his eyes shine as he sighs it, like he's describing the truest romance.  
  
Good _lord_, he's coming on a little strong-- but that's Overlord for you, all or nothing.  
  
"Easy," Mari soothes him, starting to grin again, charmed rather than frightened by his promises of violence. She's too used to him for just those words to affect her anymore. "Why don't we just start with a nice date? We'll get you fixed up, find a way to get you home...and, and then, maybe you can take me with you?" she suggests, leaning heavily against him. She catches his hand and squeezes it. "A date where we could see the stars...?"  
  
Seeing the expanse of the universe reflected in Overlord's eyes, a million pinpricks of light reflected in red glass and shine, sounds pretty damn romantic to her.  
  
Overlord laughs, a great big belly laugh, and squeezes her to him, careful not to crush her even though his frame is still hot with unaddressed energy. He kisses her forehead and then her cheeks, over the bridge of her nose.  
  
"Oh, sooner rip my **spark** out then send me back to space alone," he jokes, except Mari can tell, that it is not, really, a joke at all.


End file.
